Wednesday, 27 July 2011

The situation, as I keep being reminded every day of my working and personal life, is that people want to know what is happening regarding Wesley Sneijder and a potential move from Inter Milan.

So, take a seat, pour yourself a drink, and have a read. And then either disregard everything that is written, or believe certain bits. It's your choice but what I am writing is, to the best of my knowledge/contacts/thoughts in my head etc etc etc absolutely true.

LAST SUMMER

Manchester United last summer spoke to Inter Milan representatives (guys who work for the big men in Italy) regarding Sneijder and whether they would sell. To United's surprise, the answer was not a flat out 'NO' but merely a 'show us what you got then'. It didn't really go much from there. There was one meeting face-to-face between both sides but as far as I am told/remember, United were told the asking price, without negotiation, was £35m. And then there were wages to factor. And the fact Scholes was still around.

United walked away.

LAST SEASON

Paul Scholes' decision to retire was a long time coming, but still a decision that surprised Manchester United somewhat. At the start of last season, there was talk between Scholes and Ferguson about how much he would play a part for the new campaign and then beyond. It was agreed Scholes would 'take a view' at the end of the season whether he'd stay on. Privately, Ferguson believed Scholes would stay.

DURING THE SEASON

Ferguson met Scholes many times after training and before matches (senior players like him, Giggs etc get more 'access' to longer chats with Ferguson) and gradually, Ferguson became concerned Scholes' time (in Scholes' eyes) was up.

AT THE END OF THE SEASON

Although Ferguson still hoped to keep Scholes on, his decision to quit surprised him somewhat. Ferguson, almost immediately, started planning for his replacement. This was not a snap decision - he's always had replacements in mind - but his decision now was 'who do I actively go for and make moves to buy'.

THIS SUMMER

Wesley Sneijder has been spoken about at Old Trafford. The task to replace Scholes means you need to identify targets and he has been identified. Again, as same as the picture was last summer, United have held low level talks with Inter about Sneijder, and once again the situation is the same - Inter are open to selling him, as long as they get a lot of money in return. Do United have that money? I am sceptical. If they had the money to do it straight off, a bid would have been made officially by now, to give Sneijder the maximum time to settle at the club / make a money spinning appearance in America.

SO HOW DO UTD AFFORD HIM?

This is the only point of the transfer. Disregard whether they want him (they do), whether Inter will sell (they will), whether he wants to come (he's not fussed either way) whether other teams want him (not to my knowledge) and the like - the issue here is cold, hard cash.

Manchester United simply cannot afford to spend £35m on a player who will command £200,000+ a week wages (before tax). It is not financially viable for a club mired in debt with a player who is 27. Ferguson himself has suggested getting numerous players off the wage bill helped fund the three arrivals of De Gea, Young and Jones.

SO HOW DOES IT HAPPEN THEN?

Quite simply, someone has to back down. Either Inter accepts less money for Sneijder (unlikely, but if they want to sign Tevez there's a chance) or Sneijder accepts if he does want a new challenge, he will 'settle' for 'only' £170,000 (ish) before tax. Or, somehow, Manchester United manage to make money grow on trees and give Inter £40m and Sneijder £200,000 a week.

I doubt that a sponsor like Nike will be too pivotal in any negotiatons regarding money. Ignore them, as it's down to the two teams.

SO, WILL SNEIJDER SIGN FOR MAN UTD?

Nobody knows the answer to this question. So stop asking. And wait. Wait and see. Wait and see whether Inter accept a bid. Journalists don't know. Fans don't know. You don't know.

WHAT IS THE CURRENT STAGE OF NEGOTIATIONS?

There isn't any stage. There are no talks currently. There won't be any talks until United return from America. Then, at Carrington, United will decide what to do r.e Sneijder. As I need to say once more, unless there is some leverage given or asked between the parties involved, this transfer won't happen.

CRYPTIC CLUES

People ask me what my thoughts are on Sneijder saying 'If I stay, I stay'. I don't have any thoughts on this. It's a boring, bland, non comittal statement. It says nothing so we don't need to give it too much attention. And just because Sneijder is being given an opportunity to say 'I WANT TO STAY' and he hasn't, in NO way does that mean he is off.

BUT THEY ARE INTERESTED, RIGHT?

Of course they bloody well are. I find it interesting how some journalists (no names mentioned) once claimed that 'Man Utd have not, and will not, show an interest in Sneijder' and then suddenly backtrack to clarify their statement a few days later. But, just because someone is interested in someone, doesn't mean it will end happy for all parties. You're interested in the hot bird at school/college/work/the pub, right? Well, just because you fancy taking her out for a pint and then getting busy, it doesn't mean it's going to happen, does it?

BUT UNITED WILL SIGN SOMEONE RIGHT?

Yeah, I think so. I assume so.

A CM? (If I ever hear 'cm' again I will scream)

Probably, yes. It's the one area United need improving in.

IN CONCLUSION

Manchester United are interested in signing Wesley Sneijder from Inter Milan. Whether they sign him is another matter. Nobody knows. Personally, I think it's 50/50 as I believe Sneijder would fancy a challenge in England. But whether he fancies it enough to play for less money (he's a footballer, they all want the best money possible) and whether United find his acquisition economically viable is another matter.

Now go and have a drink and let us never mention Wesley Sneijder until September 1st, 2011.

Sunday, 24 July 2011

I was stupidly naive when I first signed up to twitter and went with theinsider9 as my aim, kinda like the blog, was to bring news from inside football clubs. Go back to the sources posts on this blog to find out where I get my info (I am sure those sources are similar for many journalists)

I am not, and nobody is, 'In The Know'. We may think we are at times, but we never are 100% ITK. Things can change. I could be told Nasri is signing for City tomorrow morning but then he might have a sudden change of heart. How will I know if he will sign 100%? The only person who know truly what is going on is the player himself. Sometimes, players keep their thoughts and feelings from their agents, so not even their own agents have the full picture sometimes.

Having noticed lots of 'insider' and 'ITK' usernames on Twitter, I quickly realised there was some sort of group whose Twitter niche was to tell tales. Hence the name-change. All these people with 'FOOTBALLAGENTITK' usernames are, without any shred of doubt, 100% not in the know and probably not involved in football at all. My guess is that they're just bored teenagers.

footyagenitk etc etc will send outrageous tweets usually with BIG names and big European clubs in their tweets, as that gets attention and in turn, followers. This summer I have seen United definitely sign Ganso, Ronaldinho, Kaka and Jack Wilshere. City have signed Steven Gerrard, etc etc. It's just all a load of complete nonsense.

There are, obviously, many great sources for news on twitter and some very knowledgeable people. At the top of my head, a few would be

M16_ORA
redromseds
intheknow99 (yes I know it's an ITK name but their news covers lots of clubs in England and it's clear that they are a news source, aggregating news across the country as well as posting their own things they have heard)
Sky's Graeme Bailey and the rest of the SSN lot.
Sid lowe
Fourth_Official
Graham Hunter
TransferNewsCentre (I think, may have got the name wrong)

If you read their tweets, you will notice a common theme. There's no ridiculous 'Liverpool have signed Gareth Bale' rubbish, but tweets that should be taken as value. Many won't say 'CLUB x have definitely signed 'MAJOR WORLD STAR Y' but will suggest that a deal is possible if x,y, and z happen. Which is fair enough. Many, sadly, take a rumour passed on by someone like:

'Yes, Sneijder to United is possible but it's a question of money...'

As someone saying:

'Yes, Sneijder has signed for Man Utd'

Then they get shouted down, called a bullshitter and asked why Sneijder has not signed for Man Utd. Oddly, these people seem to follow and take the gospel truth from the likes of FOOTYAGENTITK as if they're the oracle or something.

Not many people make money from Twitter. I think Kim Kardashian does - she earns $10,000 from advertisers if she mentions she's wearing a particular brand of makeup. I don't make money from twitter, I make money from newspapers selling and reading stories. So, yes I shall admit there are quite a few things that I won't post on twitter, because a story about them in the paper will be on the shelves. My aim when I joined twitter was to read news, views etc while also posting my own and adding a few bits of gossip I have heard on the grapevine. And that is how it will remain.

So if you're not making money from tweets, this obviously limits you to what you can and can't say. Obviously, if I was paid to tweet then I'd be able to go into more detail about certain transfers etc.

GOAL.COM

I was asked to elaborate a bit more on this site a while back - there isn't really too much to say about goal but they are going through a big revamp, backed by a fair bit of investment. The last I heard, they are recruiting journalists (with experience on national papers etc) and paying them a fair old wedge to move to online. I don't believe goal.com really but will keep my eye on them as they continue to grow and add to their team. Think of them, again, as an online news aggregator - lots of their stories are just translated from the Italian, Spanish newspapers so we don't have to.

EXCLUSIVE

Many newspapers will have EXCLUSIVE on their stories. Sometimes, the story is exclusive. Other times, it really is quite laughable how they can claim it as such. For example, a press conference, attended by every single national newspaper in Great Britain, was handled by The Sun in this way:

WE GET ALL THE BIG NAMES

And it had exclusive next to the byline. It's just plain cheek but you need to remember the journalist has not done this. They don't control how a story looks on the page, the headline, the picture or anything else around it. More often than not, the accepted 'reason' (term used loosely) for putting exclusive on stories is because it makes the paper seem 'ahead of the game' to their readers. Loyal readers won't read other papers so they will genuinely believe the story is exclusive.

Other times, exclusive is used in good faith as the editor and subeditors genuinely believe their paper is the only one that has the story, when in reality an agent/player has blabbed to more than one journalist.

Welcome to the backstabbing, the lies, the poor pay, the sleepless nights, the horrific pressure, the rudeness and arrogance of paper 'number ones' towards younger journalists coming up ... and so on.

Journalism does have a dark side, that's why so many journalists are disliked and the profession seen as deceitful. While I have never once written a story that I know to be false, I cannot deny that I've heard of goings on and certain papers that makes me think, what the hell am I doing in this profession.

At 6.15pm one evening, there was a gaping hole on one page of a national newspaper, that needed to be filled. A shout from the newsroom from one of the men in charge asked if anyone had anything. A few people said they had some press conferences quotes that were yet to be used..all pretty mundane stuff.

It was decided that a 'story' involving a team wanting a player should be written despite the fact they knew it wasn't true. It was, quite literally, plucking a team and a name out of thin air and linking them together. Why? 'Because the general public and white van man lap this transfer shit up' (actual quote).

It's best to treat everything you read in the papers with suspicion but rest assured, there are many, many good papers and journalists out there that do their best to find stories. But yes, sometimes the profession can be accused of being economical with the truth.

The editors are bloodthirsty types that want a story and want it first. I've been at a desk many times in my life and seen an entire backpage scrapped at 10.15pm when the editions are first coming out because a rival newspaper has an exclusive. Once, I think it was the Daily Mail that had written a story (exclusive) and we all saw it come through on the first editions. We didn't have the story. I was asked to write a similar one so 'we didn't miss out' on anything, despite the fact the Mail's story might not even be true anyway (for the record, as it turned out the story from the Mail was 100% spot on.) I refused to write the story and got an almighty bollocking for it.

You rarely get praised in the job from the editor but if you don't get a story right or make an error in your copy, expect them to come down on you like a ton of bricks. It's the way it is, I am afraid. You need a thick skin to survive, and that's just from fellow journalists.

The rule of the jungle is look after yourself. Stab your mate in the back to get an exclusive? I'd wager more than 50% of journalists would do this. I once got a tip off from someone that a player got injured in training and would miss around 4 months of the season. I phoned a fellow journalist at a rival paper to tip him off too, because I owed him once as he sent me the quotes from a manager's press conference as I couldn't get there because my car had broken down.

But that's pretty rare. More often than not, journalists will keep schtum about any story they are working on for fear a rival/friend will get the same story, which is fair enough. But saying you will email over quotes from an after match press conference and then 'forgetting' to do so? Yes, it happens. Usually when the quotes from the presser are quite juicy and seeing a rival paper miss out on them would be good for your own paper. Sigh.

Journalists get on mostly, although I'll never forget when Rob Beasley (then at the NOTW) threw Anthony Kastrinakis down the stairs once. They now work at the same paper, The Sun.

There is a massive pressure to get stories and sometimes journalists will 'twist' things to make it seem like there is a story when there isn't. Some of the Nasri stuff this summer has intrigued me, considering respected journalists have filed a story and then three weeks later, another version is printed which is saying the EXACT same thing but in another way. Just to make it seem like their finger remains on the pulse.

The money is pretty shit for the work you do. Yes, I get to go to games and chat to the players afterwards but it's not always like that. There's the awful feeling in the office when it's quiet and you can feel the editor's eyes burning you as you don't have anything new to offer (yet) and there's the awful PR events when you are treated like scum from footballers who think they've made it when they haven't. The PR people aren't that good either - your questions (designed to get a response so as to make a good story) are usually vetted beforehand and you can forget about being invited to future 'meet and greet Wayne Rooney playing FIFA 10' events if you don't mention FIFA at least twice in your story.

It's a great profession at times but equally, there's a lot of nasty goings on and internal cliques from journalists that can irk you. Whenever I see a youngster in the press box pretending to type on his phone or speak to someone on his mobile I feel sorry for them, as they feel awkward and nervous as all the established journalists huddle in their own circle and make it impossible for you to breach them.

Luckily, I am over all that bollocks now as I am into my 30s and been on the block for a while, but it's still disheartening to see.

Friday, 15 July 2011

This is how I got into football journalism - hopefully you will find some of this useful and if I inspire just one person to do it, then I've achieved what I wanted.

AT SCHOOL

All those years ago when I was at school doing O Levels (GCSE for the younger kids out there) I had a plan. I was good at football but knew I was never going to make it. So, the next best thing is to get paid for writing about it, right? Precisely. You will only get what you want in life if you have a set objective and go after it as tenacious as you can. That's why I was able to do this, because I had a clear goal from the start. Those who do not know what they want to do are at a disadvantage because as soon as they realise what they want, there's people who have already made giant steps in achieving what they want.

English subjects are important. If you want to write, your grammar and spelling have to be spot on. If you file your copy to the sportsdesk, the sub-editors (the guys who write the headlines and make your text fit the page) will get on your back if your copy is full of errors and such. So English is crucial.

For A Levels, do as many English and predominantly writing subjects as possible. Politics, Business, Religion, Philosophy, History, English Lit and Lang etc.

COMMON MYTH

Don't be fooled. Media Studies is not a pathway into journalism. With the greatest respect to those who study it, it's not that important and certainly not going to get you ahead of someone who has studied English Language, for example.

START A PAPER OR BLOG

Start a school newspaper (it's easy and quite fun. There's always gossip and scandal at school. Your students will love it too, trust me). Or a blog. The more you write and the more people you reach, the more chance you have of getting noticed. Blog away.

WHAT I DID

O Levels, A levels and then University, where I studied English. I started a paper at University it went from there. There are no definite subjects you have to study but as I said, learning English etc is a good start. Many Unis now offer NCTJ accredited courses and I highly recommend you do them as the NCTJ will prepare you for a career in journalism.

WORK EXPERIENCE

The crucial, make or break thing here. You won't get ANYWHERE unless you do work experience. Hassle a local newspaper into giving you a week on the sportsdesk. Here, you will be able to make contacts with journalists and also start compiling a portfolio of published work. The more bylines you get, the better you look.

COMMON MYTH PT 2

It's unlikely you will ever have an interview to get a job as journalist on a national paper. Local level, perhaps, but even that's not guaranteed. These days, it's all about the experience so if you do work experience and do well, and then keep in contact with the paper asking for future shifts etc, they will get so tired of you persisting with them they will give you a job just to shut you up. Trust me, that's what happened to me. Yes, a CV is important but the work experience is the crucial thing. As I said, start local and build from there. Local papers have links to nationals, and you go from there.

IT'S NOT WHAT YOU KNOW...

..it's who you know. That does ring true to some extent as the more contacts you have, the more doors that will open. But don't mark yourself out as exclusively a 'football writer' as everyone wants to do that. Do news, travel, showbiz, weather, whatever the hell you can - as long as you are writing for someone. Carve out a niche for yourself once you've got that first job.

JOURNALISM

Look, it's not as glamarous as you think it is. If you think it's all about 5 star hotels and watching the World Cup Final and cosy chats with Lionel Messi, you're wrong.

The pay and hours can be awful. I once had to doorstep the Football Association at Soho Square at 8am in the morning. (So I was up around 6am) and, after an hour of standing in the street, trying to find someone to talk to, it was clear it was going to be a long day. I spent the hours of 8am to 9pm in the evening trying to get someone from the FA to speak to me, but nobody did. That was my day. And it rained. All day.

Similarly, it's not all about going to Anfield or Old Trafford and watching amazing games. You'll start by going to things like Brentford reserves or a Johnstone's Paint Trophy replay on a wet Tuesday night in some northern town.

As for pay, it's not great. Martin Samuel at the Daily Mail is on around £450,000 a year but don't start getting giddy. Journalists don't do what we do for the money - there's lots of money to be made elsewhere - but we do it for the love of football and the love of writing.

Trust me, when you see your name on the back page of a newspaper for the first time, or any page for that matter, the feeling is absolutely immense. It beats money, it really does. Which is a good thing.

There are some horrible people in the profession as well and when you're a youngster starting out, be prepared for people to look down on you and retreat to their 'clique'. They view young kids as competition. They are the bright young upstarts after the big jobs held by the bitter, sleepless, greying older lot. But be polite, be patient and be persistent.

That brings part 1 of what this game is really like to an end. This blog is about you, really - if you want greater insight into how to get in etc, send me a message on Twitter.

Thursday, 14 July 2011

The media can be played. They also serve a purpose. It can be used to many, many peoples' advantages. Here I shall name them and try and give a story to give it some context.

MANAGERS USING THE MEDIA

Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United is the absolute master of this. He hates journalists (apart from possibly one or two) but knows they serve a purpose. A perfect example of how he has used the media to get his message across would be the Wayne Rooney contract saga.

If you remember, before the Champions League match with Bursaspor (or after, I forget..but that's not the point) Ferguson held a press conference and it was an Oscar winning performance. He looked a genuinely broken man. He accused Rooney of disrespecting the club that gave everything to him and that the grass wasn't always greener on the other side etc. Ferguson looked defeated and this transpired to Rooney.

As it turned out, Rooney had released a piss poor statement before that CL game saying he wanted to go. Rooney, obviously, did not write this statement - his agent Paul Stretford did. Paul wrote it, showed Rooney the content and they both agreed that they woud circulate it to the world's media.

Ferguson used this statement to his advantage and turned the tables on Rooney, immediately making him feel that he had made the wrong move. In a game of chess, Rooney was now the pawn.

He later signed that contract.

MANAGERS USING THE MEDIA PT 2 (TRANSFER RELATED)

Sometimes, I am granted an interview with a manager (exclusively, although this is becoming more rare) and in it, they will tell me they want a player. Why do they do this? For many reasons. Firstly, fans will read quotes from the manager and it looks as if the manager is doing everything he can to sign someone. This happened once with a manager of a League Two side who told me he wanted [insert player here]. He told me, off the record, that he didn't actually want the player but on the record, he gave me quotes saying things like 'yeah, he's one we're looking at, so we're hopeful' etc etc.

He lied. He didn't want the player at ALL but he wanted the fans to think that he's doing everything in his power to improve the side. What a bastard eh?

I did not run the story in the end because he had told me off the record that he didn't want the player. Had he not said that, I would have ran the story genuinely believing that he did want him. See - this reporting malarkey is an absolute minefield.

PLAYERS USING THE MEDIA

Luka Modric has been mouthing off to the Croatian newspapers saying how badly he wants to leave Tottenham. The effect this has is it puts the pressure on Spurs. They are forced into reacting to this, as we have with Levy's public interviews saying 'not for sale'. Levy, I am told, will absolutely NOT sell Modric this summer because he has been so strong in his statements saying Modric stays. I understand that Levy will not go back on his word as he will be seen as 'weak' in the Spurs boardroom and among the fans.

MANAGERS DENYING INTEREST.

This has been one of the most frustrating parts of journalism in recent days and probably why I started this blog.

Managers sometimes deny interest in a player. Many people, wrongly, take this as absolute gospel truth and that the player is definitely not wanted by the manager. Bollocks. They are lying. And they are lying because they are using the media to seek an advantage... Here is why:

Managers claim they are not interested in a player for many reasons. Firstly, if they openly declared an interest, this could alert potential rivals to a players' signature and a bidding war could ensue. No club wants that - they want a free run at a player.

Secondly, publicly declaring an interest and then seeing the player snub the club = embarrassing. If you say you really want someone and they end up rejecting you, how does that make you look and feel? Rejected, obviously. And it's not a good look.

Thirdly, opening an interest through the media before approaching a club or while in negotiations with a club is often seen as disrespectful on the potential sellers' part. I'll give you an example - Manchester United completed the signing of Javier Hernandez and it was a complete shock - nobody knew as there were no leaks. No interest was put through the media. Had there been interest, who knows - a rival club (Valencia were keen at the time) could have come in and made a bid? It was all done through secrecy.

AGENTS

I've written a fair bit tonight and agents is a bit of a murky topic, so I'll come back to this later.

Sadly, there are far too many people, particularly on Twitter, who can't tell nonsense unless it jumps up behind them, slaps them and tells them it's nonsense. And even then, they're not too sure.

So I shall make this very simple and list the names of some websites that you should ignore, if you really want to have an idea about what is going on with football transfers.

Caughtoffside
Footybunker
Footylatest
Goal.com (to an extent. I will address them at a later date)
footballrumours.co.uk

The people that write for these websites are NOT journalists. This is where many people struggle. These are guys who volunteer to post using CMS (content management systems) to a website. They have a person in charge who moderates the content.

The idea behind these sites is to get hits and views. Hits and views means advertising. Advertising means money.

On Google and NewsNow, buzzwords like 'Manchester United' and 'Sneijder' will become keywords and become easily searchable. This is why those sites write all these stories because it draws people in to reading and in turn, advertisers could make a quick buck.

Journalists are people who are paid to find out as many true and exclusive stories as possible. Website writers are people under the age of 25 (many are teenagers) who write voluntarily.

If Caughtoffside says something, just remember - no research or anything has gone into the story. It's just made up.

I was writing a transfer line involving Newcastle United five years ago. I forget the player but that's not the point here as he didn't end up signing. The sources included two journalists at a paper that shall remain nameless. They gave me the tip-off as their paper did not want to run the story. They gave it to me, I ran it.

The story was published - it was a simple 'NEWCASTLE UNITED ARE POISED TO MAKE A MOVE FOR ....' sort of thing. No harm in that, right? Wrong. I got a call from Newcastle saying the manager was furious about this being leaked because it apparently jeopardised their move for the player. Which is bollocks.

It soon transpired that the player did not actually fancy a move to Newcastle but his agent was using a Premier League team to get his 'name' out there. Newcastle wanted him, but he didn't want them. My sources had been duped. I had been duped. This is when sources go wrong.

Now, in this age of Twitter, if someone was to say that Newcastle were going for a certain player and it didn't come off, then the knives would be out for the poster and they'd be labelled a liar.

In reality, they had honestly been duped. They had been fed a line from two sources (in this case, the two journalists) who in turn had been used by an agent to get a player's name out in the media and get some interest in him.

BULLSHIT JOURNO! ALWAYS SELLING PAPERS! Is the cry. This is not the case and one of the most angering things of journalism.

As a football reporter, you are told by your editor to come up with, on average, around 5 original ideas a week (usually at the editorial meeting on a Monday). The pressure to get a story is intense. It's horrific, to tell the truth.

I was given that line as an idea to put up to the editor and he liked it, as it was exclusive and nobody else had it. We thought it was true, but it turned out that although Newcastle were keen on the player (which was later confirmed by the club) the player did not want to move there and as a result, the move didn't happen.

Is this lying? No. It's being a journalist and reporting what you're told. I had the voice recording of the agent I spoke to confirming the player wanted to join them and I had two journalists' emails verifying they are aware of the story.

So, in this brief lesson about when sources go wrong, remember this:

Football writers do not go out to lie, they go out to report things they hear. Never has the message 'don't shoot the messenger' been so apt. Even when things don't work out the way you hoped, it's not because you've plucked a name from nowhere and written a story.

Because trust me, if you did that, you'd soon get found out. Editors keep a track of the stories their writers post and if none come off, you'd soon be out the door with a wife to buy shoes for, a mortgage to sort and two screaming kids to buy food for.

The sources journalists use are far and wide and are garnered through years of relationship-making, getting drunk in bars with colleagues and meeting new contacts, going to games and getting 'in' with those who work at the club. I have used the following to write a story:

That's a good starting point. I call them, they call me, we text and email etc and if there's information to be shared, it is shared. Football clubs are actually keen sometimes to 'leak' stories to journalists because it is in their best interests to do so. They get to set the agenda, they get the information they want out in the public domain. And journalists get their story.

WHEN SOURCES ARE QUOTED

If someone working for the Chelsea Press Office gives a journalist information and wants it 'off the record' this means they don't want anyone knowing they gave the journalist the story. This could be something like a player injured in training, a player who wants to leave the club and so on. If they release that and it gets back to them, they'll be sacked. End of. So, to get round this, they say they are happy to be quoted as long as their name is kept from the story, so you see this:

"Carlos is unhappy at Manchester City and wants to leave," a source at the club said.

There's your story and the club press officer has got nothing to do with it - he is anonymous. People think that 'a source' in a newspaper article automatically means it's made up but I can assure you, 100% of the places I have worked, a source is always true. On the gossip/news pages of places like the Daily Star, a 'source' or a 'pal' or 'onlooker' is nearly always bullshit. It's the subeditor writing it to make the story sound better.

BUT YOU'RE LYING, DARREN....

I received a tweet yesterday asking me 'who was lying' because numerous journalists were saying different things on the same story. Nobody is lying. Different journalists at different newspapers have different contacts who say different things. That's all it is.

TRUSTING YOUR SOURCES

When someone comes to you with a story, you trust them if you have had a long standing relationship with them. If some knobhead calls the sportsdesk saying Rooney's going to Tranmere, then you put the phone down. It's obviously a wind up. If someone you've never spoken to before comes to you with a story and it's interesting, you meet them and see what they're like. Check out their background. Who do they know? What do they do? Be patient with them and then you may have another 'source'.

When a football writer writes a story, he or she writes it in 100% good faith. If they have a story to report, they do their best to find the facts and report them, as that is what they are paid to do.

That brings us on to 'WHEN SOURCES GO WRONG' ... but I haven't written that yet.

I've started this blog to hopefully explain to you guys a few things about how the media works. I get asked lots of questions on Twitter and in 140 characters, it's hard to give you a big insight into how I work and how the media works.

You may enjoy it. Don't expect glitzy presentation, pictures and all that sort of guff. This blog is words only. Interesting words. I hope.

Firstly, about me.

I am a football journalist that has worked, and is currently working for, a number of national newspapers based in the UK and abroad. I choose to keep Twitter and my personal life (wife, kids, where I work etc) separate. I do this because my tweets would get me into trouble at work. I usually swear and criticise other journalists and papers and that's just not going to go down well in media land, is it?

So, now we've got that out the way hopefully, I will now talk to you about what goes into publishing a transfer story and hopefully I'll answer a few questions you have.